A clumsy bad apology is worse than no apology at all because the clumsiness just reinforces the original offense the apology was meant to defuse. Luckily, 90 percent of all bad apologies suffer from seven pitfalls I call the Seven Deadly Sins of Apology. Avoid these and all parties will […] Read more

At times this year when the world’s moral compass seemed to be at its lowest point, CEOs stepped up and gave us some motivating words to encourage all leaders and people to learn from the past but stay focused on the future. Here are some of our favorite quotes from […] Read more

Chief executives, if they are lucky, rarely need the split-second decision making of fighter pilots, yet, like fighter pilots, CEOs must juggle a lot of interdependent decisions and process with high-stakes outcomes. As with fighter pilots, events facing CEOs arrive fast, furiously, and unpredictably. Time is always of the essence. […] Read more

King Hammurabi—of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” fame—gets a bad rap in business schools. But maybe the management precepts he laid out over 4,000 years ago in Babylon, Mesopotamia—perhaps history’s first codes of conduct—may have something to teach us. The Code of Hammurabi […] Read more

Duke University recently announced that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, will be its 2018 commencement speaker. If the past is a guide, a fair number of the speakers this Spring will be CEOs of public companies. University students regard many CEOs as cultural innovators on the cutting edge of social […] Read more

Even a perfect apology doesn’t vaccinate a company against fallout from corporate misbehavior. Two weeks after Equifax chairman and CEO Richard F. Smith apologized for a data breach that compromised the private financial information of 143 million people, the stock has plummeted 30%, two executives have been forced out, Congress […] Read more

A board member of a Fortune 1000 company recently came to me with his frustration that board decisions were not executed correctly unless he took personal responsibility for follow-through. I listened politely and then gently asked him if he believed that the proper role of board members should be to […] Read more

Boards are more than a required governance mechanism. “Great boards can create value and help the enterprise differentiate itself in the marketplace,” says Salvatore D. Fazzolari, a former CEO and current member of four boards. He says that a company’s board can be an instrument of strategic value-creation for the […] Read more

As the pace of pace of apologies by business people responding to accusations of sexual misconduct accelerates, the apologies are not keeping up. One reason is that too many apologizers burden their apologies with explanations. Celebrity chef Mario Batali runs a restaurant empire worth about $250 million. Recently accused of […] Read more

Both potential clients and fellow ghostwriters are uncertain about ghostwriting fees. Clients always want to know what the ranges are. Fellow ghostwriters always feel they are not charging enough or perhaps they are charging too much. It’s all a muddle. I wish there was more transparency in the fees […] Read more

About John

John Kador is an independent business writer whose best-selling books and insightful articles have been helping business leaders work smarter and more profitably for more than three decades. John has written more than ten books under his own name as well as an equal number for which he served as ghostwriter.

John’s most recent book is Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust.